The invention relates to looms and more particularly to the construction of a heddle frame for a loom and for apparatus for connecting the heddle supporting rod and frame slat of the heddle frame together in a quickly releasable manner.
With the advent of high speed shuttleless looms, there is a need to take the heddle rods out of the heddle frame of certain type looms for drawing-in of the warp threads through the eyes of the heddles. Due to the construction of the loom it is inconvenient to remove the entire harness frame so the heddle rods and heddles supported thereon are removed from the frame. This requires that the heddle frame itself remain in place in the loom and that the heddle rods and heddles are removed individually for rethreading of the warp yarns in the eyes of the heddles.
The heddles and heddle rods are then put on a "dummy" frame at the drawing-in machine while the warp threads are redrawn through the heddle eyes. The "dummy" frame is merely a frame which supports the top and bottom heddle rods a proper distance apart with the heddles sliding freely on the heddle rods so that the heddles may be rethreaded. Once the drawing-in operation is complete, the heddle rods are unsnapped from the "dummy" frames and the heddle rods and heddles supported thereon are taken back to the original heddle frames on the loom and re-installed by means of appropriate heddle rod hooks.
The heddle rod is normally attached to the frame slat by means of a heddle rod hook which may be in the form of a hanger such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,874,726 or U.S. Pat. No. 2,645,251. However, the problem occurs that these type of devices are not readily convenient to utilize in releasing the heddle rod. Hanger devices which wrap around the heddle rod have been proposed which slide in and out of a groove fixed to or in the frame slat for release. However, as with all the above hanger devices, free movement of the heddles back and forth across the heddle rod is restricted.
Because the mobility of the heddles is restricted, the loom operator often does not take time to space them out evenly. The result is that the heddles become sectionalized on the heddle frame wherein more heddles than are needed are contained in certain sections of the heddle frame. The loom operators are reluctant to perform the work required to redistribute the heddles evenly and space them across the heddle frame. The uneven spacing of the heddles destroys the parallelism of the warp yarns extending from the warp beam to the reed of the loom. The uneven non-parallel relationship of the warp yarns results in gaps between the individual warp yarn ends which can create streaks in the fabric during weaving.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,088,158 discloses a heddle rod hanger assembly by which a heddle rod may be slidably attached to the heddle rod hook. However, the rod hook is fixed to a sleeve fixed to a slat and the heddle rod slides for assembly and disassembly. This results in a loose fit between the rod hook and heddle rod which is undesirable due to the loads imposed by the dynamics of machine operation.